2010: A year in review, September

One often looks at CES and January as the biggest moments in the tech calendar but there’s no doubt that 2010 was all about September. The month started with a bang as this year’s IFA show in Berlin caught the beginning of autumn rather than the end of August as it sometimes does. With the iPad launch earlier in 2010, we were all expecting a year of tablets and we weren’t disappointed. Finally, the world met the Android powered, 7-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab and there was even a little competition with the Toshiba Folio 100 as well. Aside those treats, it was the usual case of a world of AV products - 3D being the watchword - as well as a promise from Motorola that we’d see a tablet from them come CES 2011. Watch this space.

For the gritty details of everything that whent down in Berlin, take a look at our IFA 2010 homepage but, if it was the tablets you’re after, then it was elsewhere we got a glimpse - albeit behind glass - of other gadgets in this emerging space. September also saw BlackBerry’s annual event in the US where Pocket-lint snapped the BlackBerry PlayBook concept as well as the latest Bold and Pearl mobiles running OS 6 and sat down to a full explanation of just what this QNX operating system was all about.

Nokia too decided that September would be a good time for the company's Nokia World show which this time took place in good old Blighty. Despite their fire going out in the eyes of the Western World, there was still plenty of interest in the handsets that were on show including the C7 and the Nokia E7 QWERTY communicator. Again, more on the event as a whole on our Nokia World home page.

For the gritty details of everything that whent down in Berlin, take a look at our IFA 2010 homepage but, if it was the tablets you’re after, then it was elsewhere we got a glimpse - albeit behind glass - of other gadgets in this emerging space. September also saw BlackBerry’s annual event in the US where Pocket-lint snapped the BlackBerry PlayBook concept as well as the latest Bold and Pearl mobiles running OS 6 and sat down to a full explanation of just what this QNX operating system was all about.

Nokia too decided that September would be a good time for the company's Nokia World show which this time took place in good old Blighty. Despite their fire going out in the eyes of the Western World, there was still plenty of interest in the handsets that were on show including the C7 and the Nokia E7 QWERTY communicator. Again, more on the event as a whole on our Nokia World home page.

At the same time, HTC’s Peter Chou thought he’d gazump proceedings down the road with a launch that the world had been waiting for all year. Yes, it was free minibus shuttle for journalists war as the Desire HD and Desire Z became real along with the upgraded version of HTC Sense and lots and lots of dribbling gadget fans.

Motorola weren’t to be outdone either - in theory, anyway - so the company held an event for its second crack at QWERTY chic with the Motorola Milestone 2 as well as launching probably the only Android handroid designed with toughness at heart - the Defy. Fortunately, the month was also kind to those on a budget as Orange came up with the San Francisco Android smartphone which has proved to be one of the most popular handsets out there. And to wind it all up one the mobile front, there was even one phone seen that no one was able to get their hands on. Do take a look at the video of the concept that is the Mozilla Seabird if you didn’t catch it first time around. Mind blowing.

At the same time, HTC’s Peter Chou thought he’d gazump proceedings down the road with a launch that the world had been waiting for all year. Yes, it was free minibus shuttle for journalists war as the Desire HD and Desire Z became real along with the upgraded version of HTC Sense and lots and lots of dribbling gadget fans.

Motorola weren’t to be outdone either - in theory, anyway - so the company held an event for its second crack at QWERTY chic with the Motorola Milestone 2 as well as launching probably the only Android handroid designed with toughness at heart - the Defy. Fortunately, the month was also kind to those on a budget as Orange came up with the San Francisco Android smartphone which has proved to be one of the most popular handsets out there. And to wind it all up one the mobile front, there was even one phone seen that no one was able to get their hands on. Do take a look at the video of the concept that is the Mozilla Seabird if you didn’t catch it first time around. Mind blowing.

Despite it all though, September truly belonged to the camera world with the Photokina 2010 trade show in Cologne and a huge host of other optical launches that happened around the world at the same time. Naturally, Pocket-lint was all over it like a UV filter and brought back pictures of DSLRs like the mid-range Canon 60D, the enthusiast powerhouse that is the Nikon D7000, the alternative Pentax K-5 and the super-expensive Hasselblad Ferrari H4D and medium format, £10k Pentax 645D.

An embarrassment of riches this might have been but it was really all about the compacts or, more specifically, those cameras that lie somewhere in between. Canon and Nikon got professional with their G12 and P7000 respectively, Samsung got very excited about their latest take on the mirrorless interchangeable lens market with the NX100 and it was probably Fuji that stole the show with the very swish looking rangefinder-a-like with APS-C sensor that is, and hopefully will be soon, the FujiFilm FinePix X100. Of course, if you had £20,000 to spend, there was always the Titanium Leica M9 and you can see all the other bits and pieces we dug up on the Photokina 2010 homepage.

An embarrassment of riches this might have been but it was really all about the compacts or, more specifically, those cameras that lie somewhere in between. Canon and Nikon got professional with their G12 and P7000 respectively, Samsung got very excited about their latest take on the mirrorless interchangeable lens market with the NX100 and it was probably Fuji that stole the show with the very swish looking rangefinder-a-like with APS-C sensor that is, and hopefully will be soon, the FujiFilm FinePix X100. Of course, if you had £20,000 to spend, there was always the Titanium Leica M9 and you can see all the other bits and pieces we dug up on the Photokina 2010 homepage.

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Dan's love affair with tech began in 1985 with his first computer, the Enterprise 128. After a psychology and zoology degree at university, a career on stage and screen he joined Pocket-lint in 2009. Dan has now moved on to pastures new.